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Grief, In Silence.

It's been eleven years since my younger brother died. He would have been 29 last September 10. So easy to say that time flies, but somehow, somehow, I never grieved fully--and so eleven years later it has the freshness of yesterday's heartbreak. In the early stages, the first few weeks and months after his death, if I wasn't angry at the world and at God, if I wasn't plotting my own demise, I buried my nose in books, either trying to understand the inescapable pain and burden or escaping into horde of fantasy books. I remember feeling how thin the line between madness and sanity at that time. At any point I would've crossed over to madness and lived gleefully unaware of this sad, mad world.

The years passed and it's a daily burden I have gotten used to. Some days I feel like I can deal with the world, other times I like to curl up in bed, wither, and die. And yet I couldn't. Even when I feel worse, I still force myself to get out of the bed and face life. It's not being brave; it's something I do out of habit. But somewhere, out of nowhere, grief would strike me wherever, whenever. And if I were walking, I'd do a full stop, inhale deeply, and gather myself. It's like an unseen punch, mostly in the gut, but my heart would break into a million pieces all over again.

I have the appearance of being alright, perhaps with a serious, thinking demeanor, but there's something broken inside me, something dead and heavy (partly fats, unfortunately) like there's a big gaping hole in my heart I have learned to live with. Grief empties and hollows us out. It's that feeling that there's someone eternally missing--and what of the afterlife when it's not a guarantee? It's that feeling that no one can replace the one who has gone.

I cannot erase the idea how death is such a sweet escape, because only death can end this grief. Some days I think about that. But I'm fine, I try to be, because I cannot be otherwise, no matter what the weatherman says.

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